NUMBER 12 SPRING 2003

EDITORIAL: The ‘coalition of the willing’ lies
about Iraq’s WMDs were assisted by a compliant media, particularly the
USA’s commercial broadcasting media. In Australia and the UK public
broadcasters imposed some restraint on the commercial broadcasters. In
all three countries the media’s corporate owners are now seeking a
reward via the removal of ownership restrictions to allow further
concentration of ownership.

DENIS KENNY examines the history of the USA and concludes that
it is an ongoing struggle between the ideas of Enlightenment
rationality and the presently dominant Puritan righteousness. By
supporting the Puritan impulse, Australia is becoming a pawn in
America’s globalisation strategy.

PAUL STREET is an American urban social policy researcher who
uses his experience in Chicago to show that the Bush administration’s
idea of freedom is the liberty to be desperately poor for a
disproportionate share of the black population.

DAVID SPRATT evaluates the unprecedented global demonstrations
against the Iraq war and argues that, although they failed to stop the
war, the effect was significant. The mass marches played an important
role in limiting the ‘coalition of the willing’ to three countries and
contributed to the USA’s failure to get majority Security Council
backing for the war – despite threats and inducements – because the
legal and moral case for invasion was found wanting in the court of
global public opinion.

ANN CURTHOYS discusses the role of non-Indigenous Australians in
Aboriginal struggles for equality and self-determination by reference
to her experience in the 1965 student Freedom Ride which generated
national headlines following the discrimination exposed in Walgett and
Moree and led to the successful 1967 referendum.

IAN MCAULEY exposes the phoney accountancy lying behind
Australia’s phobia with public debt and how this has led to
under-investment in Australia’s national infrastructure and undermined
the nation’s growth potential.

DOUG COCKS looks at CSIRO’s recent report on the resource and
environmental impacts of three possible population projections through
to 2050. These projections were attacked by economists who see any
attempt to build ‘what if’ scenarios to provide timely warning of
future economic or environmental bottlenecks as interference in the
market.

ANNABELLE LUKIN & TIM MOORE look at the way politicians and
business leaders use language that is apparently factual and objective
but which is structured to support a particular point of view or to
avoid responsibility for the unpopular consequences of policies and
actions for which they are directly responsible.

JOHN M LEGGE says there is no benefit in the proposed
Australia-US Free Trade Agreement for consumers or farmers and it will
probably damage our economic interests in Asia. The FTA’s primary
function is to enable the main provisions of the aborted Multilateral
Agreement on Investment to be implemented on a bilateral basis. Howard
could then argue that he has to push ahead with unpopular policies such
as the further privatisation of electricity, and the abolition of the
PBS, the FIRB and film and television local content rules.

ANDREA SHARAM argues that in order to minimise greenhouse gas
emissions from electricity generation a higher priority should be given
to demand management and energy efficiency measures, rather than
mandated renewable energy targets which are not as economically or
environmentally efficient or as equitable in leading to energy savings.

BRIAN WALTERS explains the implications of the Government’s ASIO
anti-terrorism bill (supported by Labor) to show how it is a major
threat to democracy and individual rights.

L.R. HIATT argues that all the reasons advanced for the invasion
of Iraq were morally unsustainable. Even human rights considerations
should not take precedence over sovereignty because of the danger that
strong nations will use human rights as an excuse to pursue their own
material interests.

JONATHON MUIR traces the rise and fall of Keynesianism and the
rise of neoliberalism in the C20th as a nexus between ideas and events,
suggesting that no idea is unassailable and no trend inexorable. He
thinks neoliberalism’s chronic weakness of is its lack of public
support.

JAY BULWORTH argues that Australia will not be able to develop
an independent defence policy and an ‘armed neutrality’ defence force
structure until our fear of Asia is reduced.

ROB WATTS reviews Michael Pusey’s The Experience of Middle
Australia.

NOTE
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